Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced plans by Government to establish a Technology and Innovation Park to spearhead Ghana’s quest towards ensuring an inclusive and accelerated digital ecosystem.
The action was in tandem with the government’s vision of making Ghana a technology and innovation hub in West Africa.
To that end, he said, the government dispatched a team to Isreal, Rwanda, Germany, USA, and other technology and digitally-advanced countries to learn their success stories and best practices in order to replicate it in Ghana.
Vice President Bawumia announced this when he opened the maiden Ghana Digital Innovation Week in Accra on Monday, on the theme: “Mobilising Collective Action and Investment to Catalyse Growth in Ghana’s Innovation Ecosystem”.
The five-day event will provide a platform for policy-makers, investors, academia, students, and development partners to engage in open conversation and share their perspectives on Ghana’s digital innovation pathway and chart the way forward in advancing the Ghanaian economy.
They will take stock of the country’s digitization and digitalization journey and strengthen partnerships towards building a strong digital Ghana.
The week-long event was organized by the Office of the Vice President in collaboration with the German Development Co-operation (GIZ).
Vice President Bawumia visited the pavilions of some local technology companies that had mounted exhibitions of their products and services at the venue.
Dr Bawumia said: “Government is committed to transforming Ghana through digitization. Vibrant modern Ghana can only be built if strong institutions and ecosystems are in place.
“Without these, this nation will be stuck in a vicious cycle of rhetorics and under-development”.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic had distracted many economies worldwide including Ghana, but one major lesson it had taught Ghana was that ” to rebuild the post-pandemic economy, there is an urgent need to invest in innovative technology to leapfrog the obstacles to inclusive development”.
“There is no more important development revolution facing us now than the fast-approaching digitization and leveraging on technology to develop our country.
“The opportunity to leverage on technology for accelerated and inclusive development has never been so tangible. This is the time to take a critical look at our innovation and digital transformation journey and speed up reflection and ambition into a shared vision,”the Vice President emphasized.
